Through the Lifting Morning Fog
by Carolyn Martin
There – across the yard where mums bloom burgundy,
between the maple and hinoki trees –
a spider web sixty circles wide tethered
in a splint of light. If my body tilts
a bit or my glance angles toward the sky,
it disappears. This artistry demands
straight-on sight and backdrops of evergreens
to confirm it exists. So I stand still –
ignoring the cat sniffing candy tufts,
snubbing red leaves curled on the patio –
captured by the quiddity of silk,
free to ponder how, my dear, we connect
like single threads spiraling/winding/spun.
Whatever backdrops we appropriate,
we’re content, it seems, with today’s design,
angling to re-weave tomorrow’s dawn, bound
by silken lines, by faith our tethers hold.
Carolyn Martin is blissfully retired in Clackamas, OR, where she gardens, writes and plays with creative friends. Since the only poem she wrote in high school was red-penciled “extremely maudlin,” it still amazes her that she continues to write. Her poems have appeared in publications throughout the US and UK, and her second collection, The Way a Woman Knows, was released by the Poetry Box in February 2015.